Bringing a Sense of Joy to Professional Learning Through Lego Serious Play with Joel Birch
Release Date: 05/20/2025
Navigating Your Own Mental Capacity as an Instructional Coach
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As coaches we work so hard to support others that we can often forget how important it is to take care of ourselves too. But, as said on a very early episode of the podcast, for coaches to be present for others, they must take care of themselves first. This is a special #coachbetter collaborative episode with Kim Cofino and Diana Beabout because both of them have had an extra challenging year, and when they were chatting about how they’ve managed being at max capacity all year, they realized that some of our strategies might be helpful for you too! If you’re feeling stretched thin -...
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Bringing a Sense of Joy to Professional Learning Through Lego Serious Play with Joel Birch
#coachbetter
In #coachbetter episode, Kim chats with Joel Birch, Certified Facilitator and Pro Trainer of LEGO Serious Play. Joel is such a pro at bringing fun, humor, creativity and play into his work. Just being in his orbit helps lighten the mood and start seeing creative possibilities you might not have noticed before. This episode is all about how to bring that kind of energy to your work - even if you’re a type A “non-creative” like me! In this episode, Joel and Kim are talking about the power of play to develop relationships how to structure the implementation of play (for type-A...
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Advocating for Equity with Ange Molony
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This #coachbetter episode is a highlight from one of Kim's favorite episodes from a previous season, featuring Ange Molony, Secondary School Vice Principal at Discovery College in Hong Kong. Kim and Ange talk about how informal leaders, like instructional coaches, can advocate for equity in their school setting. Instructional coaches are fortunate to engage with so many different stakeholders throughout their work, and they may have relationships and experiences with other community members that provide insight that other formal leaders don’t have. When we have the opportunity to...
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Coaching Call: Balancing Competing Demands as a School Leader with Kathy Patton
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This #coachbetter episode is part of our special series featuring real-life coaching conversations with a member of our community. This conversation is with Kathy Patton, Assistant (ES) Principal at International School of Panama. HUGE thank you to Kathy for being willing to record this session to share with all of you! This episode is such a great example of the many demands of leadership - and just a single coaching conversation can help you feel hopeful and a sense of direction in moving forward. In this conversation they talk about how challenging it is for leaders to… Manage the...
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Embracing Your Curiosity as an Instructional Coach
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It can often feel easier to be an expert (or a consultant) than it is to coach. Whether it’s building peer coaching skills among a full faculty, or inside with educators who are learning to be instructional coaches, or in , we all feel very comfortable in the consultancy dynamic. We’re familiar with the concept of mentoring or giving advice, and it’s easy to think that coaching is the same thing. This #coachbetter episode is about embracing your curiosity as an instructional coach - and letting go of feeling like you need to be an expert. Find the show notes for this episode . Like...
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Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of AAICIS
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In this #coachbetter episode, Kim chats with members of the team from the (called AAICIS), where Kim is currently serving as the Executive Director. The organization is celebrating its one-year anniversary by reflecting on its achievements since its launch in March 2024. The discussion highlights the unique support AAICIS offers to international school educators interested in or currently working in instructional coaching. The team shares how their all-volunteer, all-remote group has advanced coaching practices tailored specifically to the international school context. (For...
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The Importance of Intentional Conversations with Michele Mattoon
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This #coacbetter episode is about the importance of intentional and structured conversations. This is a highlight from one of Kim's favorite episodes from a previous season, featuring Michele Mattoon, Executive Director of the National School Reform Faculty. Recently as part of one of Leaders Speaker Series we had Jennifer Abrams share with our community about Stretching Your Learning Edges (), and as she said on the podcast, Jennifer highlighted how as educators we are not trained in having conversations with other adults. Having intentional and structured conversations, , can really help...
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Case Study: Navigating a New Coaching Role & School Culture with Jen Kagohara
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This #coachbetter episode is another in our series of coaching case studies, with one of Kim's amazing clients, Jen Kagohara, ES Tech & Design Coach, Taipei American School, Taiwan. Jen is a graduate of The Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program and when we recorded this episode she had just finished the program. These case study episodes are designed to share the story of a coach, and the development of their coaching program and practice in their unique setting. We're so excited to share this episode with Jen with you because Jen has had many experiences that are shared by lots...
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Introducing the 5 Domains of a Coaching Mindset
#coachbetter
In this #coachbetter episode, Kim introduces the domains of a coaching mindset. Did you know that the number one indicator of student success is collective efficacy? (Donohoo, 2017). Research shows that when we believe in one another, student learning improves. How we can improve our collective efficacy through the lens of coaching – without hiring an instructional coach or a formal coaching program? Because we all want to improve student learning. And we all can benefit from coaching. But not every school has the capacity or finances to build an instructional coaching...
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Bringing a Coaching Perspective to Co-Teaching with Lindsay Manzella and John Stephany
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This #coachbetter episode is a case study conversation with two amazing educators: EAL (English as an Additional Language) Teacher Lindsay Manzella and INS Teacher John Stephany. Lindsay and John worked together at NIST (Thailand) at the time of recording, where they developed a unique model for co-teaching and coaching to support all learners in John’s classroom, where Lindsay was supporting EAL students. Both Lindsay and John have had training in coaching so they have come to the co-teaching experience with a foundational understanding of how coaching works. In this episode they talk...
info_outlineIn #coachbetter episode, Kim chats with Joel Birch, Certified Facilitator and Pro Trainer of LEGO Serious Play.
Joel is such a pro at bringing fun, humor, creativity and play into his work. Just being in his orbit helps lighten the mood and start seeing creative possibilities you might not have noticed before. This episode is all about how to bring that kind of energy to your work - even if you’re a type A “non-creative” like me!
In this episode, Joel and Kim are talking about
- the power of play to develop relationships
- how to structure the implementation of play (for type-A personalities)
- the impact of bringing play into a work environment
- the kind of environment needed to embrace play
- how informal leaders can bring play to their work
- what can go wrong when you experiment with play at work
Find the show notes for this episode here.
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